A blog mostly focused on poetry. I am not sure I understand anything else.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Sonnet for today...

Here is today's contribution to Pushkiniana. I hope it adds some lustre to his reputation. It has done nothing for mine.

[I include a few other stanzas as well, for context. Today's is the last.]

“Sweet Jesus! What’s got into you?”I thunder to a non-existent jury,“You stab me with steel forks out of the blue—I promise to play Scrabble and—” And fury,Rage crystallizing in Takaaki’s eye,“I know when you’re mocking me.” I tryNot to reply—permit my mask to slip—Given how I’ve destabilized his lip:It quivers like red jello, in a mold,Before the gelatin’s had time to setSufficiently. Our eyeballs briefly metWhile calculating how long we could holdSome dark profanity from bursting out.He placed his boiled hands beneath the spout

Allowing a cascade of cold to run,So his temper had a chance to cool.He has a peculiar sense of fun.Letters at sunset. If this is a duel,Should I tease my way into his tiles—Turn phrases, like these tiny lighted dials,Listening for that peculiar pingThat tells me what’s inside my sonar ringIs not a whale or school of silver fishDarting down into the icy depths—It is his anger, slowly sliding west,Enveloped in the velvet dark? I wishHe hadn’t tried to lecture me beforeAbout my Scrabble game. I abhor

Violence, like any veteranWho knows what horrors in his heart may lurk.But I’m American, and human, and,Against a submarine, depth-charges workWell—like words—if you deploy them right.But using double-meanings in a fightIs regulated largely by the extentOf your technology. IntelligentTacticians will grade every syllableCarefully, according to its power—Testing terrors, safely, in the shower,Walking, waking, working—if capable—When stepping from his skivvies to make love.I draw the line at—this is getting rough.

Love’s not a game for gentlemen, like cricket;It's more like dominoes with rubble. WarIs our closest analogy. I pick itBecause war has no ceiling, now, no floor—No boundaries. No limits. Not the sky,The stars, the earth, the sea. The tear-filled eye—So useful in the writing of romance—Is like the language—wine and cheese—of France:A luxury. Like poetry. Like pity—Whose demotion to superfluous emotionOccurred among the corpses of World War I—Not above New York—not this city—Synonymous with cruelty—concrete.With love and war: it's lather, rinse, repeat.